Hub spinner direction

1. Rudge Whitworth hub spinners have left and right and right threads for each side of the car.
2. As a rule of thumb you turn the spinner in the direction of wheel rotation to remove them.
3. Rudge Whitworth hub nuts have a FEMALE taper, and its the eplicyclic (ish) movement between wheel and hub /nut which tightens the nut as the car drives forward. Hub nut inertia effect during acceleration and braking is in my opinion a red-herring on this matter.

Hopefully everyone agrees with 1. and 2. I think 3. is also true, and it bears out by the fact that Lotus Elans undo in the opposite direction. Elans have a MALE taper on the nut, so it seems logical to me that as the taper direction is reversed, so is the thread direction.

Why then do racing Cobras with Halibrand wheels, tri-spinners with MALE tapers on the nuts have thread directions as per the Rudge Whitworth design.
Is it any coincidence that we saw/see racing Cobras with lockwire on their tri-spinners?

Please forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere/before.
Many thanks,
JB

1. Rudge Whitworth hub spinners have left and right and right threads for each side of the car.2. As a rule of thumb you turn the spinner in the direction of wheel rotation to remove them.3. Rudge Whitworth hub nuts have a FEMALE taper, and its the eplicyclic (ish) movement between wheel and hub /nut which tightens the nut as the car drives forward. Hub nut inertia effect during acceleration and braking is in my opinion a red-herring on this matter.

Hopefully everyone agrees with 1. and 2. I think 3. is also true, and it bears out by the fact that Lotus Elans undo in the opposite direction. Elans have a MALE taper on the nut, so it seems logical to me that as the taper direction is reversed, so is the thread direction.

Why then do racing Cobras with Halibrand wheels, tri-spinners with MALE tapers on the nuts have thread directions as per the Rudge Whitworth design. Is it any coincidence that we saw/see racing Cobras with lockwire on their tri-spinners?

Please forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere/before. Many thanks, JB

Baxter,My understanding of the wire wheel spinners is that they tighten in the direction of rotation/travel.

My Dayton wire wheels have MALE tapers and they tighten counter to the Rudge Whitworth direction - a la the Elan. That said it worries me that tightening the caps does, in theory, lessen the tension in the spokes. I place my trust in the fact they have been making wire wheels since 1916 and they have been fitted to many V8 powered hotrods, etc. If there was a flaw in the concept one would have expected it to have shown up by now.

James, I cannot answer your question but I can recall an incident at a VSCC Silverstone when a well-known Riley specialist lost a (RW) rear wheel at Woodcote. A marshal who collected the wheelnut observed that it had clear instructions engraved on it that it should be fitted to the other side of the car - so the hubs had been fitted a..e about face and self-tightning had indeed become self-undoing.

... it had clear instructions engraved on it that it should be fitted to the other side of the car...

Allan - I take it that the marshal knew and/or the marking were explicit, BUT, while my actual hubs are marked 'left side' and 'right side' the caps are marked 'R' for right-hand thread and 'L' for left-hand thread respectively. So the cap for the left side is marked 'R' and the cap for the right side is marked 'L'. Easy to confuse the uninitiated

Allan - I take it that the marshal knew and/or the marking were explicit, BUT, while my actual hubs are marked 'left side' and 'right side' the caps are marked 'R' for right-hand thread and 'L' for left-hand thread respectively. So the cap for the left side is marked 'R' and the cap for the right side is marked 'L'. Easy to confuse the uninitiated

The nuts used on Rileys and most cars of that era say RIGHT (OFF) SIDE UNDO ->as appropriate.Having been shown it by the marshal, I think the one in question was like that, but it's 15-odd years ago.

1. Rudge Whitworth hub spinners have left and right and right threads for each side of the car.2. As a rule of thumb you turn the spinner in the direction of wheel rotation to remove them.3. Rudge Whitworth hub nuts have a FEMALE taper, and its the eplicyclic (ish) movement between wheel and hub /nut which tightens the nut as the car drives forward. Hub nut inertia effect during acceleration and braking is in my opinion a red-herring on this matter.

Why then do racing Cobras with Halibrand wheels, tri-spinners with MALE tapers on the nuts have thread directions as per the Rudge Whitworth design. Is it any coincidence that we saw/see racing Cobras with lockwire on their tri-spinners?

JB

Points 1 & 2 - Agreed

With regard to Cobras and Halibrand wheels - I assume it was a matter of keeping up with the convention of left-handed threads on the Right Hand side so as not to confuse mechanics!! Wiring the "tri-spinners" is probably more a case of "belt & braces" for sprint races as there is no way you'd wish to waste time cutting wired spinners and re-wiring at an endurance race.

With regard to Cobras and Halibrand wheels - I assume it was a matter of keeping up with the convention of left-handed threads on the Right Hand side so as not to confuse mechanics!! Wiring the "tri-spinners" is probably more a case of "belt & braces" for sprint races as there is no way you'd wish to waste time cutting wired spinners and re-wiring at an endurance race.

But it would be on endurance races that the self-removing would be at its worst, whereas done up really tight it might last a sprint race.If you were designing a wheel from scratch and wanted to maintain the convention, you would use the female nut/male wheel cones.

Bolt on (nuts or bolts) wheels are interesting, but as Allan points out they don't follow my theory, as applied to a SINGLE THREAD HUB SPINNER.
I hadn't previously heard of Dayton wheels before but having googled them I have now learned.
I'd say they follow my convention. I also agree about the comment on relaxing the spoke tension!

My knowledge up to now is that only Cobras break the "convention".

My suggested convention:-
Rudge Whitworths undo in the direction of travel, and have female tapers
Male tapered nuts tighten in the direction of travel. (Elan, Dayton)

With regard to Cobras and Halibrand wheels - I assume it was a matter of keeping up with the convention of left-handed threads on the Right Hand side so as not to confuse mechanics!! Wiring the "tri-spinners" is probably more a case of "belt & braces" for sprint races as there is no way you'd wish to waste time cutting wired spinners and re-wiring at an endurance race.

But it would be on endurance races that the self-removing would be at its worst, whereas done up really tight it might last a sprint race.If you were designing a wheel from scratch and wanted to maintain the convention, you would use the female nut/male wheel cones.

I have never seen wheel spinners being re-wired after a wheel change on Cobras during a race - maybe it was a convention started on Street 289s & 427s fitted with Halibrands to account for road use??

My sprint cars had a R.H. thread nut on the left side and a L.H. thread on the right.
One time the right rear nut was that tight that I had to put the whole rear end [ a Jones quick change ] in a lathe and turn it off
I must have not backed it off while it was still hot..............

I seem to recall that real Alfa Romeos (pre-FIAT, that is) had wheel nuts that were 'handed' on the same principle of self-tightening. Was this common practice or were they a bit peculiar?

I have owned several English cars (Star, Seabrook, Riley and Talbot)of the Vintage era with wheelnuts (conventional touring wheels, not RW centre-lock or similar) with left hand threads for the left hand side of the car, and right hand threads for the right

imho (Mech Eng) this whole thing about loose hubs spinners tightening is pure hokum, if your hub spinners are loose you are in trouble!
If a spinner is insufficiently tightened it can rattle loose or be loosened by slight movement between the wheel splines or drive pegs and the hubs (there should not be any movement), however in order for a loose spinner to tighten there is no force available to tighten the the spinner on the thread, i.e. nothing is "holding" it against the rotational movement of the thread.
If one had no splines or drive pegs, this would be a different scenario and a very stupid design but the arguments postulated re left vs right would then bear scrutiny, with the following proviso: the forces applied in braking are far greater than those applied in accelerating.

imho (Mech Eng) this whole thing about loose hubs spinners tightening is pure hokum, if your hub spinners are loose you are in trouble! If a spinner is insufficiently tightened it can rattle loose or be loosened by slight movement between the wheel splines or drive pegs and the hubs (there should not be any movement), however in order for a loose spinner to tighten there is no force available to tighten the the spinner on the thread, i.e. nothing is "holding" it against the rotational movement of the thread. If one had no splines or drive pegs, this would be a different scenario and a very stupid design but the arguments postulated re left vs right would then bear scrutiny, with the following proviso: the forces applied in braking are far greater than those applied in accelerating.

As another Mech E I can say that the slight eccentricity you get with slack RW wheels does give what amounts to an epicyclic effect which will self-tighten (or if wrong-side assembled is self-loosening as in my pervious post no. 4). I can see no reason for that to be different with peg-drive wheels.As for not having splines, when the splines of one of my rear hubs stripped I was able to drive home on the simple self-tightening system so long as I didn't use the brakes (!)

MikeC
Some GM & Chrysler cars of the thirties had LH thread on the left side and RH on the right side. The effect is opposite on conventional set ups where there are studs on a brake drum or hub. On Centre Lock wheels the LH side is RH thread and the RH is LH thread as were the Centre Lock wheels on my sprint cars. They had drive pins to do the driving and braking. The wheel was placed on the hub with the driving pins going through holes in the wheels then a "pressure plate" was fitted on the out side of the wheel which the driving pin also protruded into then a tappered nut was screwed onto the end of the axle which tightened against a tapper on the out side of the "pressure plate"

Chrysler used l/h threads on wheel nuts on the left side until 1970. But why this happened ever still escapes me.
And a centre lock wheel does not self tighten or loosen as they are either spline driven or pin driven and if the nut is left loose the wheel will chatter on the hub and on occasion fall off!
Centre lock wheels are mechanically inept, 5 stud wheels [or 4 or 6] are far better as they attach further out and clamp far better and more reliably.
The centre lock wheels used on a lot of racing cars with the taper in the wheel is less than reliable as has been shown for decades by wheels parting company, especially on heavier cars.The torque plate as mentioned by Peter is better BUT far from ideal and slow to change wheels.

The knock-on effect...
Love can, of course, cloud the judgement of youth and so it was that I handed the keys of my pride and joy, a black Austin-Healey 100, to my statuesque girl friend. In the ensuing crash she fell from her pedestal but was unharmed, unlike the car which was all but written off.
The repair job was another disaster--even the new colour was wrong. I quickly delivered the disappointment to the Ayres brothers' car yard, trading it on the Byfield-Ayres Repco sports-racer.
A young lady teacher spotted the Healey and, beaming with the acquisition of her first sports car, drove off down the busy highway whereupon both front wheels fell off. Apparently the Ayres brothers had their work cut out appeasing their distraught client.
Yes, the clueless repairers had refitted the splined hubs and knock-ons on the wrong sides.

And what do modern racecars have with centrelock wheels? r/h thread on both sides with drive pins. Done up properly they seldom cause short term problems, long term you can see where the wheels have been chattering on the hub face, and sometimes on the pins too. That is when they come loose. 5 stud wheels never do this unless the nuts were not done up tight.
These days a lot of Healeys MGB and the like have been converted to bolt on wheels. The basic cars in that respect were actually far better designed.
The wire flywheels especially with modern tyres are essentally an accident waiting to happen. and it is a little hard to buy crossplies these days!!

One year on the Classic Adelaide we ran on a roughly surfaced stage through a Kangaroo reserve. We reached the finish control and pulled over just beyond because the steering was pulling. Sure enough there was an audible hissing and the right-front tyre was deflating. A local technical college had provided a breakdown crew of eager young lads who volunteered their help. Jacking up the car and changing the wheel ourselves would have been just churlish so we readily let them get on with it. However, they studied the knock-off hub nut much like a New Guinea native studying the first iPad he'd ever encountered. So we handed them the hammer, and told them how it worked. One lad hammered the nut loose, and then twistled it off with his fingers, whereupon he and his mates all gazed open-mouthed at the exposed splined hub.

...they studied the knock-off hub nut much like a New Guinea native studying the first iPad he'd ever encountered...

DCN

Brilliant line!

FWIW the OP's post has been copied verbatim on the Aussie Cobra Club board Cobra and it appears that Halibrand Tri-spinner nuts coming undone on Shelby Cobras resulting in errant wheels is by no means unknown. :-( The lock wire is left with a bit of slack and when it is seen to be tight it is time to give the ears a clout with the hammer! Daft design if you ask me. I have 50-odd years experience with wire-wheeled cars (most but not all with knock-offs) and with 'handedness' I was always taught you tightened them in the direction of forward motion and, as elansprint said, the shock-loads of braking serve to assist in keeping them tight. The tyre choice briefly touched upon is a bone of contention. Dayton admit to two schools of thought, the sealer and tape v tube, in their literature while Longstone are adamant that tubes are a 'must' (They do sell jolly good tubes mind you!) Tubes in a tubeless tyre, because of the rough inner face of the tyre, must induce chafing sooner or later but on the other hand you'll never permanently seal 60 or 72 spokes either. Ideally stick to a repro of the tubed original I think.